“And besides you’re a ghost to most before they notice that you ever had a hair or a hide.” – “A Ghost to Most” by Mike Cooley, Drive-By Truckers

Let me be among the first to lazily label Drive-By Truckers’ latest album their Exile on Main Street. Clocking in at 19 songs (!) and sharing the stylistic reach of the Stones’ volcanic mess, Brighter Than Creation’s Dark is the latest in an impressive stretch of career-defining albums. Coming less than two years after the somewhat underrated A Blessing and A Curse, the new album finds the band occasionally tinkering with their successful formula but mostly just adding to their already stellar (and steadily growing) discography.

"As the clock struck midnight last evening (Jan. 10), Athens, Georgia's Drive-By Truckers took the stage in a tightly packed 40 Watt Club to debut tunes from their forthcoming LP, Brighter Than Creation's Dark (out Jan. 22 via New West). Really, it was a humble celebration as the alt-country quintet performed Brighter in its entirety while all show proceeds were donated to Nuci's Space, a non-profit organization benefiting the mental and musical wellness of the Athens performing community. At the mic, bearded frontman Patterson Hood ultimately claimed Alabama as home, but excited concertgoers knew well enough that Athens is truly the band's haven as he exclaimed, 'Athens, Georgia... I think I like y'all!'"

"First off, I’ve never been to Athens, never really been anywhere south of Southern Indiana, and now I live in LA. But at breakfast with my wife our first morning in Athens we started discussing what it would take to move there. Honestly, we couldn’t have had a better weekend.

Here’s my review of the shows: Friday night was one of the best shows I’ve seen ever…Saturday was twice as good. Really really amazing.

As for the rest of the weekend, we had a blast drinking at The Roadhouse on Friday where everyone was as cool as could be. When people started suggesting restaurants to us, I mentioned that I had already printed a list of places that Jenn sent out on ninebullets. And not only did everyone there say they knew Jenn, but they all pretty much said that Jenn is their best friend. Anyway, we walked out of there really drunk, with a couple free tshirts, and a ridiculously small bar tab. I love the prices in that town.

So thank you Jenn for the list and allowing us to make some friends, thank you Athens for showing us a great time, and thank you DBT for two truly amazing shows.

-JC"

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Vids from the Athen's Shows!

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Brent Best tears "The Man" a new asshole. This really is a joke (but not funny ha-ha).

"As Best himself recently put it on the popular Denton Rock City message board, 'I am an ASCAP member. This means that I should collect money, based upon their system of the tracking of 'use' proportional to said 'use' of my music. Problem is, their bullshit system is the biggest one-sided bell curve you've ever seen...In the end, I, or anyone else 'represented' by ASCAP make no money proportional to what I sell or what of mine is used unless or until I'm as big as Mariah Carey or who-the-fuck-ever. In fact, all those publishing songwriters affiliated with ASCAP who aren't on that monetary level actually make money for those who are. If I go from selling 10,000 albums a year to 40,000, along with the predictable increase in 'use' (such as jukebox plays and the like), I will never see a proportional increase in royalty payout from ASCAP. Instead, the extra money I earn, along with the thousands of other artists on the lower rungs earning progressively more, will go the top 2 or 3 percent of ASCAP artists already earning millions a year from their vapid shit.' (The fact that Candilora mentioned favored Celine Dion songwriter and schlockmeister Diane Warren while conversing on the subject kinda sorta almost confirms this, in my mind at least.)"

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Check out some in studio pics of Sons of Roswell. That producer guy looks damn familiar.

"Buried in a 'music-industry-screwed' roundup in the Economist is this nugget: An allegation that music label EMI was spending $400,000 a year on party favors (booze, drugs, women, whatever) for its talent:

Now, having got rid of most of EMI's senior managers and revealed embarrassing details of their spending habits (�200,000 a year went on sundries euphemistically referred to in the music business as “fruit and flowers”), Terra Firma is due to produce a new strategy later this month. But many observers reckon the private-equity men are out of their depth."